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VicViper on 29 August 2012
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WiiBox3 said:
VicViper said:
I think I'll start learning Japanese... no really, I think I really will. Is it that hard or time demanding? More than 1 year for the basic stuff?

I really want to be able to enjoy games like tomodachi collection and culdcept and inazuma eleven without having these dramatic waits... and it's not wait for release, but a wait to see if it gets released or not!


Learning the understand spoken Japanese, isn't too hard. But learning to read Japanese is quite dificult. Of coure Hiragana and Katakana are not so bad, but Kanji (The Chinese character). When I played FF VII I knew about 1000 kanji characters, I was assisted by a kanji dictionary, and I still had no clue what was going on once Cloud went mad. The biggest problem is that there is so much made up stuff in Japanese RPGs that learning the language for a few years won't be enough to fully understand.

For the spoken stuff, it is also important to understand not only the language, but the culture and nuances of comunication. You have probably hear some of the simple stuff, like people will rarely say "No" to you, unless you are best buddies. When you are talking they may say "Ok... Sure... Yeah... Ok..." this just means they are listening to you, it doesn't mean they agree with you or will do what your asking of them.

If your going to do it, just commit to it. FIrst learn hiragana and katakana, the two basic forms of writing. This will make it so you can use about any book to learn Japanese, instead of a book that only uses Romaji to teach you Japanese. If you have questions PM me. I lived in Japan for part of High School and for a few years after College. I can give you tips if you are serious on how to pick it up faster than usual.

Thanks for the long (and great) post.

I notice that example you gave a lot, even in today's ND. Iwata kept saying Hai when Interviewing some guy. I always found  strange that they nod too much, now I know why. Just confirming they're hearing.

I'll research a little more tonight and update my first step in this thread!